The present invention relates to smart cards, and more specifically a contactless or hybrid-contact contactless smart card for which the antenna is on a support made of fibrous material such as paper.
The contactless smart card is a system being used increasingly in various sectors. In the transport sector, the card has been developed as a means of payment. The same holds true for the electronic wallet. Many companies have also developed identification means for their personnel using contactless smart cards.
The exchange of information between a contactless card and the reader takes place via remote electromagnetic coupling between an antenna embedded in the contactless card and a second antenna in the reader. In order to create, store and process the information, the card is equipped with a chip or an electronic module which is connected to the antenna. The antenna and the chip are generally located on a dielectric support made of plastic material (polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyester (PET), polycarbonate (PC) . . . ). The antenna is obtained by chemical copper or aluminum etching on the support or winding of conductive metal wire.
The card is often monobloc. The antenna support is often inserted between two layers of plastic materials (PVC, PET, PC, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) . . . ) forming the upper and lower card bodies and then heat bonded by hot lamination under pressure. The chip or the module is connected to the antenna by an electrically conductive glue or equivalent which enables the ohmic contact to be established.
However, a card of this type has several major drawbacks. The most significant drawback is that the plastic heat bonding operation, implemented during the lamination process, leads to a monobloc card having mediocre mechanical properties in terms of the restitution of absorbed stresses. When excessive bending and twisting stresses are encountered, all of the stress applied is transmitted to the chip or electronic module and primarily to the bonding points which make the connections. The mechanical strength of the bonding joints is subjected to great strain which can cause the module-antenna or chip-antenna connection to break. The antenna may also be cut as a result of these mechanical stresses.
This specificity has been used by fraudulent individuals, incited to commit fraudulent acts by the availability of xe2x80x9csmart cardxe2x80x9d technology to the general public.
Besides large-scale organized fraud which requires significant means and highly-skilled technical specialists and which consists in reproducing the behavior of a real card by using another technical component, individual fraud is the most insidious in that it involves individuals who are the customers of the card issuing organization.
One can find occasional fraud, which consists in using the card for a purpose other than the one it was designed for, or in not respecting the usage conditions prescribed by the card""s issuer.
Indirect intentional fraud also exists in which a user, unfamiliar with the technique, tries to obtain a service for which a card is not programmed. This is the case of someone trying to obtain money from an automated teller machine using a transportation card, for example.
Finally, the last type of fraud is direct intentional fraud. In this case, the user is thoroughly understands how the card works and recognizes its weaknesses. It is thus relatively easy for this type of individual to destroy the card as cleanly as possible, by intense repetitive bending, when in possession of a card sold with a credit (telephone cards, mass transit cards, highway toll stations), and that this credit is exhausted or almost exhausted without it being possible to prove the intent to fraud afterwards. Then, the antenna may be cut, and the chip or module disconnected without the card being marked. Owing to its intrinsic nature, the plastic allows significant deformation without showing any visual signs.
In these three types of fraud, individuals with the intent to fraud make the card inoperative and then attempt to exchange or reimburse the card with the card issuer. The latter are thus faced with a serious problem as they want to treat their sincere customers fairly but do not want to pay the costly price of falling prey to fraud by blindly reimbursing faulty cards.
Another drawback of these cards is that they are comprised of a composite stack of glued or heat bonded plastic materials with different thermal expansion coefficients. As a result, systematic unacceptable and irreversible distortion of the cards is observed (twisting, warping), as well as a lack of mechanical resistance when subjected to standardized or equivalent tests.
Furthermore, PVC exhibits poor thermomechanical properties. During the card body lamination process, material flow is significant and the antenna""s shape factor is not maintained. This leads to antenna malfunction as the electrical parameters (inductance and resistance) vary. Even more serious, it is not uncommon to experience antenna breakage in areas where strong sheer stresses are present. This is particularly the case in angles and at electrical bridging points.
The laminated ISO cards have a total thickness between 780 and 840 xcexcm. Considering the flow of material described above, it is also very difficult to guarantee customers a narrow and controlled distribution of the cards"" population.
Another major defect of these cards is that after lamination, the imprint from the copper etching is visible on the printed card bodies. Although this does not prevent the card from operating correctly, the defect is often emphasized by users who are very concerned about the aesthetic criteria.
And finally, the cost of manufacturing cards with this process is too high to enable any real increase in their usage.
The purpose of the invention is to mitigate these drawbacks by supplying a contactless or hybrid contact-contactless smart card enabling the risk of fraud to be limited by leaving a mark of any attempt to damage the card, while resisting distortion and having good mechanical resistance, thereby retaining its shape factor and enabling the integrity of the electrical parameters to be guaranteed.
The invention thus relates to a contactless or hybrid contact-contactless smart card featuring an antenna on a support, this antenna consisting of at least one turn of electrically conductive ink screen printed on the support, two card bodies on each side of the support, each card body consisting of at least one layer of plastic material, and a chip or module connected to the antenna. The support is made of paper and each corner features a cutout enabling the two card bodies to be welded together, enabling the bent card to delaminate at the location subjected to the stresses generated by the bending which will highlight any act of deliberate damage a posteriori.